


Alec Ryder's Son

by giantsequoia



Series: Star-crossed [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 22:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11300076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantsequoia/pseuds/giantsequoia
Summary: For a prompt. Staff Commander Alenko encounters young PFC Ryder heading off to his first official posting, offers some advice, and makes a promise.





	Alec Ryder's Son

Six months after the destruction of the SSV _Normandy_ , newly-promoted Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko was on Arcturus Station, overseeing the assignment and briefing of the latest batch of recruits.

He didn’t feel ready to return to work. He didn’t think would ever feel normal or complete again, with Shepard and Ashley gone.

But the world was the world. At least throwing himself into his duties might give his mind a break, something to focus on. If he worked himself so hard that he was exhausted every single night, maybe in the mornings he wouldn’t remember his nightmares about Reapers, or the heart-wrenching dreams of reliving every conversation and intimate sparring session he’d had with Shepard. Maybe if he filled his mind with images of the people he was working to protect, he would stop seeing Ash’s face whenever he closed his eyes.

“Welcome to Arcturus Station,” he said to the line of recruits standing at attention in front of him. “I’m Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko. I oversee the defense of several human colonies in this sector.”

He launched into an overview of their projected assignments, pertinent facts about the region, and the various superior officers (his subordinates) that they would be reporting to. He had this briefing memorized, so he could let his mouth rattle it off on autopilot while he paced up and down the line of recruits, subtly inspecting each one.

He wasn’t worried about their suitability for the Alliance or their conduct or anything of that nature; they’d all been vetted and interviewed many times before him by lower-ranking officers. His role at this point, among other things, was simply to be alert for anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t expecting much, but a few issues always cropped up.

“Some of you will be posted here, and some will be sent out in one week’s time to the outpost at Relay 202,” he was saying. “If any of our colonies within the relay’s response radius are attacked, you’ll be deployed as part of the defence force.”

He noted a few faces perk up at his mention of Relay 202. Probably the ones who’d been assigned there. One in particular caught his eye: a young man, devastatingly handsome, whose stance was rigid and perfect and whose jaw was clenched a little harder than necessary.

“As you know, the Alliance is still fighting holdouts of geth throughout the Attican Traverse,” Kaidan went on. “With their main fleet dealt with at the Citadel, we don’t expect much in the way of major offensives. However, we know there are stragglers, and raiders and slavers are always a concern....”

He continued with his spiel, observing various microreactions to the things he said and making mental notes of potential problems down the road. None of these recruits had displayed any tendency towards _serious_ troublemaking – they wouldn’t have been assigned to the Arcturus sector if they had – but one never knew what might come up in the course of one’s duties, what personal feelings might be stirred up enough to get in the way.

The longer he spoke, the more his eyes were drawn (inconspicuously) to that one, particularly tense recruit. As Kaidan observed him, he began to realize that the young man was angry about something. _Very_ angry.

It barely showed on his face, and not at all anywhere else. His attention was rapt, his stance flawless. His salute had been beautifully crisp. But there was no mistaking the slight tension around his brows and his jaw, nor the deadly glint in his eyes of someone ready to tear into the next person who gave him an excuse. Kaidan had seen that look on his own face in the mirror plenty of times – not for many years, but he remembered it well.

Every time Kaidan passed that recruit in the line, he felt the faint, almost imperceptible flicker in his barrier that indicated he was in close proximity to another powerful biotic.

Of this particular group, he was the only one whose potential issues Kaidan decided to follow up on immediately, rather than by adopting a “wait and see” approach. Whatever had the young man so worked up had to be addressed, and soon. Kaidan knew all too well the potential minefield of poorly-regulated emotions, _especially_ for a biotic.

To be sure, this man was young enough to have benefitted from the lessons learned at Jump Zero. He would not have been exposed to abusive instructors, and no doubt his implant was of a newer, safer model than Kaidan’s L2. Even so.

Eventually the briefing wound down. Kaidan finished his memorized piece, then added in a few improvised comments that he’d come up with while pacing – about camaraderie, bravery, vigilance, that sort of thing. He might have been imagining it, but he thought that most of the recruits looked a bit more relaxed by the time he was finished than they had when they had come in, which was of course his intention.

It felt good to know that these people trusted him implicitly despite never having met him before, and that his conduct today had been the first of hopefully many demonstrations that he was worthy of that trust.

All, it seemed, but for the young biotic. When Kaidan finally dismissed the recruits, he was a tense as ever. He said nothing and made eye contact with no one as he marched out of the room, well ahead of his fellows. Kaidan watched him go, thinking.

∞

A little while later Kaidan was in his office, making some notes in his official and personal logs. When he finished, he called up the files for the recruits he’d spoken to and flipped through them, looking for one face in particular.

Here he was. “Scott Ryder,” Kaidan murmured, reading the name attached to the file. He began to peruse more carefully what he’d only skimmed before.

There was not much of note, as was usual for a recruit who hadn’t even reached his first assigned post yet. Exemplary scores in mathematics and engineering; average in marksmanship and interpersonal skills. Young enough that he must have enlisted on his eighteenth birthday... apparently alongside his twin sister, Sara, who was part of the Alliance scientific corps.

His biotic power index was alarmingly high – higher than Kaidan’s, comparable with Shepard’s. His implant, however, was not an L4 as Kaidan had suspected, but a custom design built by one Ellen Ryder – evidently his mother.

Oh, this was interesting. His father was Alec Ryder, an N7. Kaidan knew of him; he was considered a maverick. None of this was in Ryder’s file, but Kaidan knew through the upper-command grapevine that Alec had several citations in his own record for disciplinary measures related to “unsanctioned research”.

Kaidan wondered if Alec’s wife was involved in that research. It seemed unlikely that she wasn’t. He tapped the link provided to the schematics for Ryder’s implant.

Classified, at a level higher than his.

Kaidan frowned. He scrolled down to the comment section.

 _Scott is very introverted and difficult to get to know_ , the evaluating officer had noted _. His psych profile indicates strong resentment towards his absentee father and devotion to his mother and sister. Mother is terminally ill (AEND). Possible anger-management issues related to experiences of bullying as a biotic._

Kaidan’s heart broke for that young man – hardly more than a boy – whose mother was dying of AEND. Kaidan’s own mother had been luckier than that, but several of his classmates at BAaT had been motherless or orphans due to element zero exposure. He remembered all too well their stories about watching one or more parents slowly die from exposure to the same toxic, extraterrestrial mineral that had given them the ability to manipulate gravity.

He was unsurprised to learn that Alec Ryder wasn’t exactly the Galaxy’s Best Dad. Perhaps that was the root of what was bothering Ryder right now, but Kaidan had a feeling the answer lay in another direction. The file went on, but there was nothing else concretely helpful.

 _Possible anger-management issues related to experiences of bullying_....

Another familiar tale – prejudice from non-biotics. Kaidan himself was currently the highest-ranking human biotic anywhere, military or political, and he strongly suspected that his recent promotion was as much to placate his inevitable anger at the way the brass had swept Shepard’s warnings under the rug as it was due to his service against Saren.

Kaidan had caught more than a few higher-ranking officers than he, including some of his direct superiors, giving him sidelong glances or ceasing conversations as soon as he came within earshot. His equals and subordinates were more circumspect, but he’d accidentally eavesdropped on enough conversations to learn just what some of his colleagues and the people under his command _really_ thought of promoting an L2 biotic to Staff Commander.

Of course, nobody had ever dared question _him_ openly about whether he was reading their minds, or if his presence would infect them with a terminal neurodegenerative disease. Would Scott Ryder, an untested recruit, have been given the same consideration in boot camp or advanced training?

Having already read through the files of the other recruits currently on the station, Kaidan had a growing hunch about what was bothering Ryder. He considered possible courses of action and decided on one within a few minutes. If he was wrong, there would be no harm done.

He pinged Ryder over his omni-tool. “Private First Class Ryder? This is Staff Commander Alenko.”

The response was immediate and immaculately professional. “Ryder here. Go ahead, Commander.”

“Come see me in my office, please, as soon as you can.” Kaidan tried to keep his voice neutral, not wanting Ryder or anyone listening in to think that he was in trouble. By the formal tone of Ryder’s response and the very slight pause beforehand, he hadn’t quite succeeded.

“On my way, Commander. Ryder out.”

Kaidan deactivated his omni-tool and waited. Less than a minute later, there was a knock at his door.

“Enter,” Kaidan said.

Ryder entered the room and stood at attention as the door closed behind him. “PFC Ryder reporting as ordered, sir.”

“Have a seat, Private,” Kaidan said, gesturing towards one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Ryder obeyed stiffly, sitting down on the edge of the seat, his back ramrod straight and his eyes pointed roughly at the level of Kaidan’s chin.

No sense beating around the bush. “What’s bothering you, Private?” Kaidan asked.

Ryder met his eyes, his expression registering a flicker of surprise. “Sir?”

“What’s got you upset?”

Ryder blinked and looked down again. A full five seconds passed before he said anything. When he did, his voice was cool. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

Kaidan bit back a sigh.

“Scott,” he said. Ryder looked up at him, eye widening in surprise.

“When you get to my age and rank, you get good at reading people, particularly in between the lines of what they say – or don’t say. I could practically feel the heat radiating off you at the briefing earlier. You’re as tense as a coiled spring. What’s going on?”

Ryder’s eyes shifted back and forth as he seemed to chew over his answer. Finally he said “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

An impatient comment flitted through Kaidan’s mind – _Implicitly given when I asked about your emotional state, Private_ – but what he said instead was “Granted.”

“Some of the recruits who shuttled out here with me have been....” Ryder’s gaze wandered around some more as he searched for an appropriate word. “Difficult.”

“Because you’re a biotic,” Kaidan stated.

Ryder’s eyes narrowed fractionally and he looked down again. He nodded once, adding “Yes, sir. I’m used to it, but it’s still hard not to give in and retaliate.”

“The most – shall we say, _satisfying_ responses you could give would only justify their bigotry, correct?” Kaidan went on. Ryder looked up again, nodding wordlessly, mouth parting a little in surprise.

“You’re forced to be the bigger man every single time, because if you ever so much as slip your control, you know they’ll never see you as one of them.”

Ryder kept nodding.

“It sure _would_ be satisfying to knock a few of them around, though, wouldn’t it?” Kaidan finished, and Ryder let out a bark of laughter before he controlled himself.

“I... yes, sir,” he admitted, fighting a smirk. “Yes it would.”

Kaidan smiled back, but soon let the expression go. “Well... I’m sorry on their behalf, Private, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you that it’ll get better with rank. I still get shit like that from _my_ peers, although they’re a lot subtler about it at the command level.”

At the uncouth language from such a high-ranking officer, Ryder finally let go of his formality and gave in to a bitter smile.

“I’ve heard and read about what you did while serving with Commander Shepard, sir,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero, and there’s not a damn person alive that has the right to question your competence or accuse you of-” He stopped suddenly, clamping his mouth shut and averting his eyes.

Kaidan nodded, not pressing the matter. “It’s going to take education, patience, and time for people to learn acceptance and unlearn distrust, just like it always has. You and I happen to exist now, at the forefront of human biotics, when things for people like us are probably as bad as they’ll ever be. But in a way, that also makes us very lucky.”

Ryder had been nodding along right up until that last sentence, at which point his eyebrows twitched a little. “Lucky, sir?” he said dubiously.

“You and I get to set an example,” Kaidan told him. “We get to be the ones to prove the doubters wrong.”

Ryder’s mouth twisted. He made no other response.

“Cold comfort in the face of right-now ignorance and ostracism from your peers, I know,” Kaidan said. “All I can offer as advice is to try to make friends with the ones you’re posted with. Show them that you really are just like them, except with a little bit extra. In time they’ll get to know you for who you are, rather than who they _think_ you are; and one day you’ll find that what you can do engenders respect and admiration, not fear.”

He only hoped that was true.

Ryder let out a long breath. “I understand,” he said. “Thanks, Commander Alenko.”

Kaidan nodded and offered him a smile, which Ryder tentatively returned.

“If you’re having trouble with a specific person or people, don’t hesitate to take it to your CO,” Kaidan said. “And if you have trouble with your CO, come to me.”

Ryder’s looked surprised. “You, sir? No disrespect intended – but aren’t the petty social issues of Alliance recruits a bit beneath your pay grade?”

“Human beings are beneath no one’s pay grade, Private,” Kaidan said. “Should you ever come to me with a problem because you don’t feel comfortable or safe bringing it to the attention of a lower-ranking officer, I promise you that I’ll hear you out, and help however I can.”

The tension seemed to subtly melt away from Ryder’s shoulders and jaw as Kaidan spoke those words. He even looked a little misty-eyed – briefly, before he reasserted his ironclad control.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll remember that. Thank you again, Commander.”

Kaidan nodded. “Dismissed, Private. If you like, this meeting was me being impressed with your omni-tool proficiency and trying to get you to switch to a Logic Arrest.”

Grinning, Ryder stood up, saluted crisply, and left the room.

Kaidan sighed and rubbed his forehead as he felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on. Before the pain became crippling, he opened up his personal logs to make a note of the conversation that had just occurred.

He dearly hoped that Ryder would never need to take him up on that offer. Yet he had a feeling that one day – perhaps not soon – that young man would need his help.

When the day came, Kaidan would do what he could. A promise deserved no less.


End file.
